Looking in the Honest Mirror of Privilege: Polite White Reflections


LOOKING IN THE HONEST MIRROR OF
PRIVILEGE: "POLITE WHITE" REFLECTIONS

JANIS L. MCD ONALD*

When I look in the honest mirror of white feminist legal scholarship
I see reflected back at me a failure by those of us "polite white" feminists to
seriously address the substantive critiques authored by women of color in
the last twenty years. It is time to develop an agenda that does more than
cite to the work of these important critiques. It is time to follow their lead
and work to transform our own thinking to confront personal privilege that
may shape our approaches to scholarship. At the final panel of the
Conference, "Why a Feminist Law Journal?", which is the subject of this
symposium, one of the professors present made a statement that went
unaddressed. The bold, honest observation made by Professor Taunya
Lovell Banks continues to concern me, particularly because no one really
responded. She referred to the many Black, Latina, and Asian women who
have pointed out that white legal feminist scholars have not broadened the
inquiry to challenge the essentialist assumptions inherent in their focus.
Professor Banks added that "nothing I have heard here today makes me feel
any differently about this failure."

I prepared myself for the intense discussion that would follow. As
someone who works to uncover my own white privilege I waited a moment
to listen to how others would respond to her very frank comment. I
appreciated her honesty and wanted to engage in examining our own
actions to figure out what should be done to further the dialogue about this
problem. I wanted to figure out how to make those concerns a part of my
responsibility as a critical race feminist. I am learning to take my part in
admitting the limits of my own evolving perspective as a critical white
feminist legal scholar.'

. Associate Professor of Law, Syracuse University College of Law. I was asked to
write up the talk that I delivered at the spring symposium panel entitled, "Confronting
Obstacles: Tenure Politics, Rankings, and New Solutions." I am choosing to respond to a
different obstacle because of the points raised at the very last panel and my belief that "polite
whites," including me, have not fully engaged in an examination of our own layers of
privilege and assumptions that keep us from having the honest dialogue needed for feminist
theory to thrive.

1Professor Taunya Lovell Banks has written about the importance of engaging in a
meaningful dialogue about race which requires white participants to see their own color and
privilege. She does not see it happening. See, e.g., Taunya Lovell Banks, Race Talk: Review
Essay: Seeing A Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race Patricia J. Williams, 24 T.
Marshall L. Rev. 235, 248 (1998) (book review). Patricia Williams's book, The Alchemy of
Race and Rights, and the article that preceded it, were important, eye-opening resources for



Looking in the Honest Mirror of Privilege

Any articulation of exclusion or omission ought to be seriously
addressed in an environment where all participants help to shape the nature
of the dialogue. As most of the feminist scholars present appeared to
identify a commitment to support critical race scholarship, I expected that
we would engage in a fruitful self-examination of her point, or at least act
as if we heard what she said. Instead, silence loomed large in the room for a
telling moment and then the moderator called on the next person to ask a
question of the panel. We moved on, congratulating ourselves for a good
conference, and busied ourselves with receptions and goodbyes that did not
address her concerns.

Professor Banks identified the fact that the Emperor was not
wearing any clothes and we chose to ignore this critical observation.2 In this
age when opponents of affirmative action are raising the mantle of color-
blind equality, where the assumptions of white privilege remain hidden
under that mantle, how can we even consider ourselves "polite" if we refuse
to help uncover the hidden assumptions we perpetuate that blind us to the
voices of women of color or that blind us to our own role as "polite
whites"? Our willful blindness helps shield what may be under the
Emperor's make-believe mantle. We do specialize, as feminists all, in
trying to name hidden assumptions, do we not? If we cannot address this
failure to accept responsibility for engaging in the dialogue on these tough
issues that keep us separated or isolated or silenced, then we are not doing
much of value. One starts with one's own house to examine whether the
foundations are solid.

The critique based on essentialism is a familiar one. It is
wonderfully diverse and challenging.3 The observation articulated by

me when I first encountered her writing. I knew at the time that her words punched me
toward the truth about the work that had to be done. She made me doubt my blind allegiance
to liberal left assumptions about equality, rights, and race. She continues to provide me with
hope and inspiration to do my part for this dialogue.

Her words echoed the new world I was encountering as a privileged white who
had just become the mother of a Black infant. I had many lessons to learn and I spent many a
sleepless night for the next sixteen years learning that the world was a far different home
than the one I had occupied before parenting my Black son. I absorbed the lessons I learned
from her writing and the writing of many of the women of color who raised issues that spoke
to my heart and to my responsibilities as a white feminist of legal scholarship. (These
influential writers included Twila Perry, Mari Matsuda, Cheryl Harris, KimberlI Crenshaw,
Maggie Chon, Margaret Montoya, Elizabeth Inglesias, Regina Austin, Paula Johnson,
Paulette Caldwell, Taunya Lovell Banks, Emma Coleman Jordan, Tanya Kateri Hemandez,
among a long list of others.)

2 Patricia J. Williams, The Emperor's New Clothes, in Race Talk: Seeing a Color-
Blind Future: The Paradox of Race 3, 3 (1998).

3 See, e.g., Patricia Cain, Lesbian Perspective, Lesbian Experience, and the Risk of
Essentialism, 2 Va. J. Soc. Pol'y & L. 43 (1994); Angela Harris, Race and Essentialism in
Feminist Theory, 42 Stan. L. Rev. 581 (1990); Celina Romany, Ain't I a Feminist 4 Yale
J.L. & Feminism 23 (1991); see also bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman (1981); bell hooks,

2003]



Columbia Journal of Gender and Law

Professor Banks was not new. She made the room of feminists
acknowledge, if only by our silence, as we joined together as feminist law
students, law professors, attorneys, and staff, that we had not truly engaged
in the real dialogue and we continued to make assumptions that reflected
that same old essentialist box. Professor Banks made her comments in the
place that should be the most receptive to inclusiveness and openness. Her
position as a valuable member of this community meant that we needed to
actively hear her concern and engage in the kind of dialogue that took her
comment to heart. The conference focused on the future of feminist law
journals and yet we continued to ignore a major stumbling block to real
dialogue.

How could this be right when some of the panels were devoted to
topics, for example, as "Moving the Margins: Assimilation, and Enduring
Marginality," "Unity and Communities: Intersectionality, Privilege, and
Membership," "Autonomy and Integration: Choosing Which Master to
Serve," and "Gender, Sexuality, and Power"? Each of these panels had been
arranged with careful consideration to adding many different kinds of
voices on panels that seemed to deal with these i ssues. Women of other
colors did address and analyze the essentialist problem. I think, however,
that Professor Banks's comment was meant for the "polite white" feminist
crowd. That critique seems right to me. The problem is not that women of
other colors than white are failing to address issues of white privilege or
white color-blindness.

The silence suggested a difficulty for "polite white" feminists to
either understand or give value to her view. We responded with silence and
moved on. Perhaps this happened because the hour was late, the comment
was not a particularly new one, and the statement came close to the end of a
demanding day-long conference.

In an earlier panel, Professor Twila Perry called for meaningful
dialogue in order to get beyond these difficulties. I think we have not had
the kind of dialogue she is referring to because of the failure of those of us I
call "polite white" legal feminists to be willing to do the honest self
examination that would be required to truly enter the dialogue.

"Polite white" legal feminists still have difficulty entertaining the
idea that we might be wrong, or oblivious to our own privileges, and, since
it would cause such a fuss, we refuse to engage, or take seriously, the
indications that all is not well in the camp of feminist legal theory. Silence
is the unconscious, or willfully blind, weapon of "polite white" approaches
to the issues raised by women of other colors. As "polite whites," we tend
to focus on the issues we feel we can manage and we either do not
recognize or do not name those that we cannot handle. Civility seems to
demand that we refuse to admit that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes.

Feminist Theory: from margin to center (1984); bell hooks, Talking Back: thinking feminist,
thinking black (1989); bell hooks, Yeaming: race, gender and cultural politics (1990).

652 [Vol. 12:3



Looking in the Honest Mirror of Privilege

There are so many other battles to face as a feminist legal scholar that it
seems all we can do to fight within our own deliberately shaped boundaries
to the dialogue.

It is often difficult to admit to our failures with regard to other
feminists; as "polite whites," we engage in perpetuating the myth that all
feminists share at least a core set of agreements about the underlying
assumptions of the feminist critique. Any discussion of differences based on
race are difficult and, too often, laced with defensive postures that act as a
barrier to real learning. We avoid the hard discussions because we are
human and we want to be civil and we can only maintain a facade of civility
if we choose not to engage. That is a privilege we need to abandon.

I wanted to take Professor Banks's comment to heart. Upon my
return to my own law school I started rereading articles by scholars,
including Professor Banks, who have continually raised this essentialist
critique in both feminist and mainstream journals. My search focused on the
following question: is there evidence in the feminist legal theory literature
that "polite white" feminists are engaging in the dialogue about issues
raised by feminists of other color? After a review of the scholarship it is my
opinion that the following ideas have not been adequately addressed by
those of us who need to look into the mirror and figure out how our own
privileges, assumptions, and lack of engagement contributes to closing the
dialogue upon which the growth of feminist legal scholarship depends.4

Feminist law journals, in addition to other forms of published
scholarly work, need to dedicate in-depth attention to the lack of response
from "polite white" feminists to the substantial insights provided by women
of other colors. "Polite white" legal feminists need to discard the mantle of
"politeness" and report on the reflection we see in this important mirror we
have ignored. Leadership has been provided by women of other colors that
could help us as "polite whites" inspect our own color and what it brings to
us that is hidden. Before we can progress and shed the not-so-polite silence,
we need to spend a good amount of space to the following problems, among
others that should be identified.

1. "Polite whites" operate from a position of safety with respect to
race and this contributes to the amount of ignorance and willful blindness of
our relative positions of power. What is the full extent of our position of
safety? How is it protected by us and by the law? How do we personally
benefit from that position o f safety? Our decisions about what has to be
important are often shaped by the assumptions of neutrality we make about
that position of safety we occupy; before we can dialogue with others in a

' Due to the space limitations of this symposium format I can only suggest these
items that need further discussion. I am sure that there are many other points that should be
added and each deserves a thorough analysis. I plan to take my own advice and devote future
work to this topic.

2003] 653



Columbia Journal of Gender and Law

meaningful way we have to come to terms with our own privilege of safety
vis-a-vis women of other colors or cultures.5

2. "Polite whites" are good at rationalizing away the differences and
experiences brought up by women of other colors when the differences or
experiences do not resonate with our own experience based on unexamined
and privileged assumptions.6

5 I am reminded of the scholarship on transracial adoption and the voices of

scholars like Professor Twila Perry and other scholars of color who published numerous
articles identifying their serious concerns about removing race as a consideration in
transracial adoptions. See, e.g., Gilbert A. Holmes, The Extended Family System in the
Black Community: A Child-Centered Model for Adoption Policy, 68 Temp. L. Rev. 1649
(1995); Ruth-Arlene W. Howe, Redefining The Transracial Adoption Controversy, 2 Duke J.
Gender L. & Pol'y 131 (1995); Twila L. Perry, Race and Child Placement: The Best
Interests of the Child and the Costs of Discretion, 29 J. Fain. L. 51 (1990-91); Twila L.
Perry, The Transracial Adoption Controversy: An Analysis of Discourse and Subordination,
21 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 33 (1993) ("I do not unequivocally oppose transracial
adoption, but I strongly support the placement of Black children with Black adoptive parents
whenever feasible." Id. at 39.) [hereinafter Transracial Adoption Controversy]; Dorothy E.
Roberts, The Genetic Tie, 62 U. Chi. L. Rev. 209, 267 (1995) ("Transracial adoptions permit
white families to embrace Black children without eliminating the structures that preserve
white supremacy."). The National Association of Black Social Workers ("NABSW") had
denounced transracial adoptions as "cultural genocide." NABSW, Position Paper (Apr.
1972), reprinted in R. Simon & H. Altstein, Transracial Adoption 50 (1977). A number of
white scholars dismissed the position of the NABSW as "militant" or insensitive to the needs
of children languishing in foster care without learning from or taking seriously the
substantive concerns of scholars of color who raised these issues. See, e.g., Margaret
Howard, Transracial Adoption: Analysis of The Best Interests Standard, 59 Notre Dame L.
Rev. 503, 517 (1984) ("In 1972 the National Association of Black Social Workers
('NABSW') condemned t ransracial adoption i n terms s o militant t hat t ransracial adoption
fell by 39 percent in a single year."); Elizabeth Bartholet, Where Do Black Children Belong?
The Politics of Race Matching in Adoption, 139 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1163 (1991). Professor Perry
and others attempted to engage in a dialogue that focused on the complexity of the issue of
cultural genocide and why so many Black scholars applied this terminology to the problem
of transracial adoptions. She indicated that "it is important to understand why Blacks have
seized upon this language. Genocide is a powerful word, and its continued use is both
strategic and symbolic. It represents Blacks' attempt to seize the terminology of the debate
about race by naming their own experience." Transracial Adoption Controversy, supra at 74.
It is this experience that is either ignored or misunderstood or undervalued that is the heart of
the failure of "polite whites" to engage in a meaningful dialogue with scholars of other
colors. But see Sharon Rush, Loving Across the Color Line, A White Adoptive Mother
Learns About Race (2000) and my book, Polite White Mom, currently under submission for
publication (draft on file with the author), for the experiences of white mothers identifying
their own failures to come to terms with the privileged "polite white" perspective in these
debates. We have learned the hard way that the concerns raised by women of color need to
be addressed and that race should be a factor in the consideration of placements based on the
child's real needs as a child of color.

6 Peggy McIntosh identified a list of forty-six privileges that she, as a white

woman, discovered as previously unconscious privileges operating in her life. Peggy
McIntosh, Power, Privilege and Law, A Civil Rights Reader 22, 25-27 (Wellesley College
Center for Research on Women, Working Paper No. 189, 1988). While this was a wonderful

654 [Vol. 12:3



2003] Looking in the Honest Mirror of Privilege 655

3. "Polite whites" participate in denying and dismissing the truth of
the experience of others based on our own lack of acceptance of a
responsibility for familiarity with these experientially-based truths.7

4. "Polite whites" often characterize the claims or harms perceived
by women of other colors as "hypersensitive" based on our own reaction or
ignorance of the harm identified. 8 "Polite whites" sometimes prioritize our

own sense of harm over the harms of other women or we equate an isolated
harm to a systemic harm without giving hard consideration to the relative
sense of power we have retained as white feminists. 9

step forward in response to an essentialist critique, and has been cited by many others, very
little work has been done by scholars in applying the consequences of these privileges as
they operate in the law or as they operate in our failure to dialogue with women of other
colors. See Ruth Frankenberg, Whiteness and Americanness: Examining Constructions of
Race, Culture, and Nation in White Women's Life Narratives, in Race 62 (Steven Gregory &
Roger Sanjek eds., 1994); Stephanie M. Wildman et al., Privilege Revealed: How Invisible
Preference Undermines America (1996).

7 See, e.g., Daniel A. Farber & Suzanna Sherry, Beyond All Reason: The Radical
Assault on Truth in American Law (1997).

8 Margaret Chon, On the Need for Asian American Narratives in Law: Ethnic

Specimens, Native Informants, Storytelling and Silences, 3 Asian Pac. Am. L.J. 4 (1995);
Mari Matsuda, When the First Quail Calls: Multiple Consciousness as Jurisprudential
Method, 11 Women's Rts. L. Rep. 7 (1989); Margaret E. Montoya, Silence and Silencing:
Their Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Legal Communication, Pedagogy and Discourse,
5 Mich. J. Race & L. 847 (Summer 2000). These scholars are among the many legal scholars
who have provided insights on the silence in the law and in feminist theory about women of
other colors and backgrounds. These authors and others have produced wonderful, insightful
work providing all of us with a way of understanding the perspective of multiple
perspectives and yet I do not see them engaged by "polite whites" in ways that transform the
thinking of "polite white" feminists. The perspectives are added as footnotes when the
"Asian afterthought" or the "Latina afterthought" is added to the broader screen. A real
dialogue would require us to engage and be willing to be transformed by the new insights
offered by these scholars. We tend to cite and move on, acclaiming their contributions
without addressing the challenges they raise for all of us.

9 Some of this conference alluded to the consequences of the battles we have
already fought. My panel devoted a good deal of the time allotted to discussions of the
consequences for feminist legal scholars during the tenure process as a result of publishing in
feminist legal publications. My presentation recounted my experience when a noted historian
submitted the obligatory "outside review" and blasted my piece, published in the Yale
Journal of Law and Feminism as "silly feminist nonsense." Professor Elvia Arriola recounted
her experiences and her eventual move away from the University of Texas law school
because of the denigration of her chosen area of scholarship by some of the key players in
her tenure process.

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but I saw us as a microsample of the way in which
the consequences play themselves out for feminists along the racial divide. In my case, the
consequences of being "blasted" by my only outside expert reviewer did not include denial
of tenure or a move away from my law school. My faculty rallied around me and voted
unanimously to give me tenure. In Professor Arriola's case, about the most charitable thing



Columbia Journal of Gender and Law

5. "Polite whites often omit or deny recognition of any difference
amongst feminists on basic assumptions of feminist theory."10

6. "Polite whites," whether consciously or unconsciously, often
resort to silence as a weapon of dismissal when we fail to understand or

you could say is that many of her faculty did not rally around her. She left for another law
school knowing that her work had not been valued. The consequences for her of "adding to
her difference" were far more severe than the consequences for me of adding to my
difference as a white woman. While I make no claims as to the accuracy of this breakdown
for the difference in treatment between white women who speak out and "women of color"
who follow the same course of speaking out, I suspect that the statistics would show a
decided trend in that direction. Our reactions to the consequences of our publishing choices
differed in another interesting way. Even though I received an overwhelming vote of tenure
from my faculty, I felt traumatized and subjected to a form of criticism that seemed to assault
me from an unexpected source. I should have known better, but I did not. Some of my
reaction had to do with the feeling of entitlement to the goodwill and respect of my fellow
colleagues. Perhaps I had been lucky, but it was the first time I had ever received such a
harsh criticism which hit me at a point of particular vulnerability: the day of my tenure vote
by my faculty colleagues. I felt that I should have had an opportunity to defend myself. My
colleagues jumped to my defense, for which I am very grateful, but then the victory of my
tenure was their victory, not mine.

As I think about the quiet, thoughtful way that Professor Arriola spoke of the
difficulties she endured during the tenure process and her decision to leave her law school, I
began to feel that my response to my own tenure difficulties had something to do with my
own sense of privilege. Despite being a worrier, I expect to be acknowledged for the hard
work I do. As an attorney in practice and as a law professor there have been occasions where
all my strength has been devoted to overcoming the unfair hurdles placed in my way
compared to the favorable way in which male colleagues are treated. I have engaged in these
battles on a daily basis, but always with the deeply rooted conviction that my views will be
tolerated, if not respected, in the practice, in the courtroom, and in the academy. Many white
feminist legal scholars have suffered severe consequences for speaking out and I do not
mean to diminish the price we have paid for our courage. I do think, however, that as
subgroup on the "privilege" hierarchy, the harms we have suffered have been different and
that we need to pay attention and honor the relative differences in the harms that may occur
because t he person i s a feminist o f color, a nd/or a queer theory I egal scholar, o r a white
feminist with a heterosexual orientation. My own difficulties in writing after the unexpected
attack at a very vulnerable moment in my professional I ife Ied to a multiple-year writing
block that should not have happened. It has to be understood for what it is in the context of
my own privileges and assumptions based on my status as a "polite white" feminist who is
learning not to be so "polite" and the reaction I will receive for failing to conform.

io Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights 130 (1991), stating that

The perspective is one beyond those three boxes that have been set up. It
is a perspective that exists on all three levels and eighty-five more besides
simultaneously. It is this perspective, the ambivalent, multivalent way of
seeing, that is at the core of what is called critical theory, feminist theory,
and much of the minority critique of law. It has to do with a fluid
positioning that sees back and forth across boundary....

656 [Vol. 12:3



2003] Looking in the Honest Mirror of Privilege 657

refuse to accept statements made by women of other colors.1" Where is the
scholarship that responds to the points raised by women of color from white
scholars? Although citations are made to the work of these scholars there is
little substantive engagement of their ideas by white women legal scholars.

7. "Polite white" feminists continue to believe in a form of
neutrality that fails to take into account differences which do not resonate
with our own experience. The critique of essentialism is shifted from the
points made by the critique to a defense of the substance of the "feminist"
contribution of the "essentialist" author.1 "

8. "Polite white" feminists display a conscious or unconscious
disinterest in what Patricia Williams calls "affirmative hearing" or listening
to women of other colors.13

9. "Polite white" feminists cling, consciously or unconsciously, to
the staying power of middle class white perceptions even in helping to form
a feminist world view.

H The active silence that occurred in response to Professor Banks's comment at

this feminist conference is a very real example of one form of silence utilized consciously or
unconsciously.

12 Catharine MacKinnon's dominance theory became a lightning rod for the

critique of essentialism. See Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified (1987); Catharine
MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1989). The debate centered on her
theory and the critiques of her theory. Instead of treating the claims of essentialism from the
perspective of the women of other colors who raised such claims, with a directed response or
dialogue with these scholars, the focus became a question of the validity of Catharine
MacKinnon's truths. Martha Mahoney, Whiteness and Women, In Practice and Theory: A
Response to Catharine MacKinnon, 5 Yale J.L. & Feminism 217 (1993). The "essentialist"
critique that occupied the attention of many "polite white" legal feminists focused on the
way this related to Catharine MacKinnon's feminist theory of dominance as a description of
sexual relations between men and women. The response had less to do with a real dialogue
about the critiques being raised about essentialism by women of color and more about the
way in which the essentialism critique was understood to be a divisive rift between
heterosexual possibilities of loving men and dominance theory. It lacked focus on the way
race and sex must intersect in the complicated issues that women of color address and the
way oppression of men of color plays into the understanding of any theory of dominance that
claims universal validity. Katharine T. Bartlett, MacKinnon's Feminism: Power on Whose
Terms? 75 Cal. L. Rev. 1559 (1987) (book review); Frances Olsen, Feminist Theory in
Grand Style, 89 Colum. L. Rev. 1147 (1989) (book review). But see Christine A. Littleton,
Does It Make Sense to Talk About "Women"?, 1 UCLA Women's L.J. 15 (1991); Carrie
Menkel-Meadow, Review of MacKinnon, Toward A Feminist Theory of the State, and
Rhode, Justice and Gender, 16 Signs 603 (1991).

13 Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights 121 (1991) ("Blacks and

women are the objects of a constitutional omission ... It is thus that affirmative action is an
affirmation: the affirmative act of hiring-or hearing." Id.).



658 Columbia Journal of Gender and Law [Vol. 12:3

10. "Polite white" feminists insist on the priority of safety zones for
ourselves as women at the expense of a reliance on faulty racial stereotypes
and assumptions.

11. "Polite white" feminists become defensive when we do not
understand the critique that is addressed to us by women of other colors.

12. "Polite white" feminists still render our own color invisible.

13. "Polite white" feminists still insist on being considered "the
good guys." We consider ourselves the experts on feminist theory. We shut
down when we are not viewed as leaders of the movement.14

Feminist law journals, in addition to other forms of published
scholarly work, need to dedicate in-depth attention to the lack of response
from "polite white" feminists to the substantial insights provided by women
of other colors.' 5 "Polite white" legal feminists need to discard the mantle

14 1 think that "polite white" feminist theory is in danger of replicating the
reactions of many of the original founders of critical theory to the onset of groups that
focused on critical race theory, or critical race feminist theory, or queer theory, or other
theories viewed as "offshoots" of their original critical legal studies (CLS) efforts. Instead of
allowing themselves to be transformed and reformed as a result of what they learned from
the insights, energy, and creativity of the "offshoots" it seemed as if there was a vested
energy in maintaining the integrity of the "original CLS" emphasis. The separatist notions of
maintaining some kind of "old CLS" integrity are problematic to me. It seems paternalistic to
regard these movements as offshoots or to maintain that CLS is something that is not obliged
to evolve in response to the new insights we all take responsibility for in our real dialogue
with each other. See, e.g., Frances Olsen, Politics Without a Movement, 22 Cardozo L. Rev.
1105 (2001).

15 1 suggest that the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law dedicate at least one full

volume of the journal next year to this topic and a real dialogue amongst women of all
colors.



2003] Looking in the Honest Mirror of Privilege 659

of "politeness" and report on the reflection we see in this new mirror we
have been provided. Leadership has been provided by women of other
colors that could help us as "polite whites" inspect our own color and what
it brings to us that is hidden. We might even discover our own true colors
hidden underneath the layers of unexamined assumptions and unearned
privileges.